


Stars and Circuits

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Affection, Established Relationship, F/M, Flash Fic, Fluff, Het, Partnership, Recovery, Supportive Relationship, Tattoos, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11533026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: You can’t always walk away from the past, but sometimes it’s okay to cover it up for a while.





	Stars and Circuits

They’d got the tattoos in a backwater tattoo parlour of dubious hygiene back the the project had been in the early days before they’d been driven apart. Back when they could, at least tentatively, have been called friends. Wash thinks that it had been North’s idea. You’d think it would have been York who’d suggest it, but Wash is pretty sure that York had been passed out by that point, and South had vanished off with that hot girl who’d been playing darts, so it had to be North who’d brought up the idea.

This time, the parlour is bright and airy and cleaner than some hospitals Wash has seen. The air is filled with the sound of buzzing needles and he watches as the Project Freelancer logo, that stupid, slightly crooked symbol that he’d got one night while way too drunk to make a rational decision, is transformed into a spiralling design of geometric shapes and circuitboards which curl around his bicep.

He glances across the room to where Carolina is, her tank top hitched up to just beneath her breasts as the artist puts the finishing touches on the bright splashes along her ribs, colour to his monochrome. 

He’s seen them up close before now, when she just had the outlines and bits of colour done; there’s flowers there, and stars. 

“They don’t have to mean anything, Wash,” she said when he asked, as he’d shown her the idea he’d had for his own. “The one I’m getting covered up meant something and…” She’d shrugged, but he could see the tautness in her shoulders, could feel it when his lips grazed against her neck. “Sometimes you can do something just because you like it.”

She finishes first, but she’s waiting for him when he leaves, with strict instructions on how to take care of it. Apparently hot water and a t-shirt he didn’t care about ruining was not approved care. No wonder the original tattoo had ended up kind of wonky and odd. He’s kind of sore. Not necessarily bad sore, but not the same sore he gets from a good workout either, he’s not sure how to describe it.

Carolina has the same sort of sated look on her face that she gets from a really good sparring session and she carefully stands on his right side so that she can bump his shoulder as they head back to the house.

“Do you like it?” she asks suddenly as they turn down from the main street. The house is out of town by a few miles, but they both like to keep up the exercise when they can. they both get itchy as fuck when there’s too many long periods of inactivity so they burn the energy off however they can.

“The tattoo? Yeah. I guess. It looks cool.” He can’t wait to show it off to Tucker and Caboose honestly, even if he knows there are going to be jokes about how he’s finally loosening up.

“I’m not trying to run away,” Carolina says.

Wash stops dead and turns to her. The light is in the last dregs of the afternoon, thick oranges and caramel, that do nothing to hide the crows-feet around her eyes, the peculiar little twist of exhaustion that is the set of her jaw. He knows it like he knows himself.

“It’s just a tattoo,” she continues, meeting his eyes squarely like she’s bracing for a fight. He’s noticed that too. Peace is a difficult thing to adjust to, and sometimes, when uncertainty looms, they find the conflict in the every day mundanities. Wash finds it in the weekly grocery shop, which he arms himself for as though it’s a war all its own. Carolina finds it the gym, in the little jobs they take on out of boredom more than necessity, and, apparently, in this.

“I know,” Wash replies and reaches up to lightly touch the little bit of blank ink visible below the sleeve of his t-shirt. “I’ve got one too. I know it’s there though,” he adds.

He shoulders slump, just for a second, before drawing back up, somewhere between pride and challenge. “I’m not trying to hide. I just-“

He can hear the tightness in her voice, and he reaches out and grab her wrist, his fingers curling warmly against her pulse. She starts and looks at him. He sees her match her breathing to his, and he focuses on that for the moment until the knot of her lips untwists.

“We’ve got our history marked out all over ourselves,” he says when her hand slips into his. “I thought once that my history was all I’d ever be.”

Her fingers tighten, squeeze his. he knows she feels that too. The two of them, dragged down by the weight of what they’ve done, and probably more by the weight of things they hadn’t done. He strokes his thumb against the jut of bone in her wrist. 

And it’s not as if he’s in any position to be talking about this. He doesn’t know if there’s really any symbolism in the stars and yellow flowers dotted amongst Carolina’s tattoos. He does know the circuitboards of his are more than pretty patterns. But no-one else has to know. Maybe that’s the point.

“Sometimes we can just do something because we like it.”

Carolina snorts and a second later her hand is not in his, instead it’s ruffling his hair followed by a slight tug which makes his breath quicken and gives promises about what will be happening later when they get back home. 

“Very deep. Did you practice that in the mirror, Washington?” she asks, and she grins, loud and as bright as the flowers along her ribs. 

“Hey! I wouldn’t do that!”

“You had notecards stuffed in your sleeve when Junior came to visit.”

“That was different! Junior is practically an ambassador. I had to make a good impression.”

Bickering, they make their way home.


End file.
